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nelliemuller disagreed with:

I think he is over generalizing. Does he base his ideas on research?

csrd disagreed:

Proper research can bring out the possible and obvious other side of the coin,”when knowledge meets receptivity meets good taste meets culture and enlightened journalism.” I tag Nellie’s obsevation.

PixelRN disagreed:

Both sides of this argument could also have been made for newspapers. The Wall Street Journal exists in the same world as the National Enquirer. I don’t know much about Keen but I suspect he must have a pretty bleak opinion of mankind to make a statement like that.

Peter Blomert disagreed with:

Keen may well be right – but so what?

The opportunity to share your opinions, insights, thoughts and – yes! – prejudices with only small effort with the whole world (i.e. the web) is a revolutionary step forward for the democratizing of “information”. Democracy means, bluntly spoken, that the idiot may vote as well as the genius; so now every idiot is free to publish his thoughts on the net.

I cannot see any harm this will do to society! Nowadays you don’t need a lot of money to publish your writings, so the published views aren’t biased anymore by money. Views published today are rated by the audience, so the attractiveness of the single blog reflects the interests and views of the global audience. This may be no good indicator for quality, but at least it isn’t biased by exclusion of millions authors who had no possibility to publish their views before blogs were invented.

Keen is right in that many blogs indeed aren’t a high-water-mark of human achievement, but that applies similarly to newspapers, journals, books, radio, tv, movies …

With the invention of blogs, everybody has the opportunity to write – even without having the ability to write – that is democracy.

hshawjr disagreed:

I believe that blogs are in effect a safety valve for many in society. It is better to get it off “your” chest than to allow things to seeth within you. Therefore, just on that alone, blogs have a great value in our society. Also they allow the dissemination of alternative ideas (many of which I don’t agree with), but believe that they should be available to be read and discussed to show good and bad points without censorship (or censored by agreement of the group they are in).

In the past only a relative few have had access to being able to publish their thoughts. The idea that you or I might be able to discuss openly with others (lots of others) our perspectives, scares the bejessums out of the elites in society (those who would control the masses by providing them only the information they want them to have). In the U.S. there are about 10 people that own 90% of the print media is this a good thing…no it allows a small segment of society to control too much information and as we know the old saying is that “Information is Power”. I have been involved with “media distortion” of events, what was in the paper was completely different from what I saw as someone standing watching the event.

So even if a blog is totally off the wall, it does serve a purpose, after all we don’t have to read it if we choose not to and we can comment and tell the author that they are totally off wall and the reason why we believe that they are. We are having a conversation only instead of face to face it is being done by writing.

But now we have a world as our audience, someone from Israel, India, China or Brazil could be reading my words and then giving me feedback on my thoughts and giving me a perspective that I did not enjoy prior to their entering into my blog conversation. So to me blogs are invaluable to the common people of the world, but scary as hell to those who are currently in power. Fingers got moving too fast again.

So I will remain an amateur and enjoy my egotism in my blog :)

Peter Blomert disagreed:

Harold, you say it better than I could – I agree totally with you!

mawstools disagreed with:

I disagree with Keen and agree with Harold.

All I might add is that I notice that the democratization of public opinion writing that blogging is accomplishing is breaking down arbitrary designations of authority and power that I have to believe will, ultimately, reorganize humanity. A new culture based on participating – instead of just bystanding and gossiping – seems to me to be emerging…

Right now, it’s a bit chaotic for the participants. And it takes a lot of work to sort through the increased noise and find what we’re looking for… a LOT more work than picking up a paper that’s been edited for us.

I woke up this morning thinking that I can’t read one more blog – or one more discussion post – or one more wiki page without a long walk up the mountain. And it’s raining this morning, so I won’t get that walk right yet. My mind is too full to enjoy the volume of different points of view I’m trying to entertain at the same time…

Maybe that’s the state of mind that Andrew Keen was in when he wrote what he wrote.

csrd disagreed:

Humanity, that is man has to reorganize oneself with the help of proper and up-to-date tools at disposal. If necessary create more tools and among which blog is one. Let not the tool reorganize man. ” A new culture based on participating – instead of just bystanding and gossiping – seems to be emerging…” Great. But is it not a fact that a mind which discerns what is chaotic right now is a mind which stands out, apart and not a part of it ! Then alone the truth of the adage,”Man is the master of his destiny”, will really stand vouchsafed. Regarding this aspect I agree to disagree with mawstools.